Chapter 19 #3
Kate went through Caroline’s phone while she sat here before her.
Kate’s mind was spinning, wondering how this would all play out.
Was this manslaughter? Was this murder one?
It couldn’t be murder one because there was no intent, but, holy Hannah, all the texts were here on Caroline’s phone. All those texts between her and Sarah.
Kate shared, “I have Sarah here as well.”
“She’s crazy,” Caroline declared. “She’s an absolute lunatic.”
“She for sure is now.”
“What?”
“Killing the priest has pushed her right over the edge,” Kate replied.
“And I’m just waiting for forensics to confirm it’s her blood and fingerprints on the knife that killed Father McCain.
So there are no winners in this game. Kurt Conner, John Smith, Robert Blake, and Father McCain.
Four innocent men who died because of this feud between the two of you. Four that I know of.”
“I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt.
In my own defense, I was trying to protect a friend of mine, and somehow it just went to shit from there.
… Including the death of Father McCain. I don’t know why Sarah had to kill him.
Maybe because he’s the one who made her believe.
He’s the one who kept telling her to believe in good things, to believe in a future, to believe in love, to believe in children,” she suggested.
“Sarah finally realized that believe might work for other people but not her. In the end, I just don’t think she could handle it. ”
“That’s possible because, when it came down to finding out that she killed somebody and that you had killed somebody, somebody she cared for—”
“I don’t even know if she knows,” Caroline interrupted.
“Are you kidding? You sent her a picture. She knows,” Kate stated, raising her head, staring daggers at her.
“Even if she doesn’t know all the details, she knows, and that you can count on.
” Kate got up and stated, “You’ll be booked and will get one phone call afterward.
I’ll be waiting to hear from the DA’s office on specific charges, but you will not get off scot-free.
… As for Sarah, do you know how many others she may have killed? ”
Caroline went ghost white.
“Kurt died two Christmases ago. Then you and she each killed a man after this most recent Christmas.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Caroline wailed again.
“So who died the Christmas before?” Kate asked Caroline.
She shook her head, whispering, “Ask Sarah.”
Kate smiled. “I’m asking you.” When Caroline went silent, Kate added, “Don’t worry. The DA’s investigation will go broader than ours did, covering more cities. I hope you weren’t involved in all that.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Caroline kept repeating.
“You delivered the bottle of wine that you took from Sarah’s house and that tainted wine killed Robert.
You should have realized any wine bottles taken from Sarah’s house were contaminated as Sarah had already explained to you how she poisoned the other bottle of wine for you to drink and die. Instead John drank it.”
“But I didn’t know that this other bottle was poisoned,” she repeated, staring at her in horror. “I did not know. I would never have killed that man.”
Kate stared at her. “You don’t have to convince me. You should worry about convincing a jury, and, frankly, you’ll have to do a whole lot better than this. As far as I’m concerned, I totally see you as guilty.” And, with that, Kate walked out, closing the door very, very quietly behind her.
She leaned against it for a long moment, her eyes closed, and then hearing a sound, she opened her eyes and turned to see Simon standing here in front of her, a concerned look on his face.
He opened his arms, and she didn’t even question it and walked straight into them, and they closed around her and held her tight for a long moment.
She looked up at him and asked, “Do I want to know why you’re here?”
He pondered that for a moment, and then a chuckle escaped. “You won’t be happy about what happened before I got here, but I’m here because I just wanted to be nearby.”
She smiled. “Everything else is secondary then.” He explained it to her, as they walked back to the main office, and she stopped to see every one of her team members, even Colby, sitting there, munching away.
She looked closer, and then turned back to him, surprised. “Are you kidding me? Are those hot sandwiches from the deli?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I couldn’t settle at home after all the excitement, so I figured that maybe you guys could use a meal too.”
She looked up at him and laughed. “You know that everybody here has homes to go to, families to go to, and food at home too, right?”
He shrugged. “There are two kinds of families. There’s the one you have, who you married, who you love and adore; and then there’s the family you work with.
They’re different, but they’re both very important to nurture.
As I have found out, it’s even more important to know those you are working with,” he acknowledged.
“So, I didn’t think you would be too upset. ”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, I’m not upset. Some lessons are harder to learn than others, but hopefully today we both won a round on something very ugly, and it’s a win that we both needed.”
He tucked her up against him, then dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You’re absolutely right. It’s a win we both needed, and we also both got it, so here’s to us.” With that, he leaned over and gave her a hard kiss in front of everyone.
With the cheers and laughter going on around her, she reached up and gave him a kiss in return, then stepped back. “But, if you think that gets me out of all the work to be done now, you are so wrong.”
“I can settle for a weekend. A weekend on the Running Mate.”
“Oh, now that would be awesome,” she muttered. She looked back at the massive crew assembled here and announced, “You guys had better eat up because, man, we have got a messed-up case. One that we’ve got to straighten out enough to present to the DA.”
“So, they did it?” Lilliana asked.
“Yeah, both of them did, but we’ll have to figure out if Caroline intended on killing Robert or not.
She says she didn’t, yet she handed a poisoned bottle of wine over to Robert Blake, and then went back in to make it look very much as if our Sarah had killed Robert.
And Sarah won’t stand for trial because she’s not mentally stable enough for that.
Yet I’m afraid she killed at least one man, sometime after the prior Christmas. We’ll see what the DA finds.”
“Good Christ,” Lilliana muttered, “all these deaths and for what? Why?”
Kate turned to Rodney and asked, “You got any ideas to help summarize the why on this one?”
He shook his head. “Jealousy, maybe envy. I don’t know,” he muttered.
“Envy,” Kate stated. “I think maybe envy.” She turned back to Lilliana.
“It was a doozy,” she muttered. “An infertile woman, Sarah, engaged to a man who wanted a family, Kurt. Another woman, Caroline, stepping in to out the secret. The engagement broken. Sarah scorned. So she killed her fiancé, and then two years later killed Caroline’s boyfriend, John, as payback.
Then Caroline wanted payback, supposedly by sleeping with Sarah’s new love, Robert.
Yet she brought poisoned wine to his house, which he drank and then died from.
I fear at least one more man died around Christmastime in between our known deaths.
I hope the DA has a bigger budget and, with his bigger reach, can untangle this mess. ”
“But you’re bringing him Sarah and Caroline,” Lilliana pointed out, with a big grin. “That’s what counts.”
“Yeah,” Kate muttered. “Too damn bad it took so long to get to the bottom of it.”
Lilliana rolled her eyes. “It’s been less than a week, and you found the killers of four people, including one from two years ago. So, take the win while we can, and, tomorrow, it’ll be back to the battle, and a whole new battle at that.”
Simon agreed. “Take the win because you and I both know that tomorrow’s a new day, and who knows what the hell will happen then. But, in the meantime, we are planning a weekend away, and if anybody here has a problem with that—”
“Nope.”
“Nada.”
“No problem here,” Colby agreed, waving his sandwich.
“As long as you get out before another case hits,” Lilliana warned. “Because after that …”
“Right,” Simon replied, as he looked over at Colby. “So, when she’s wrapped up—”
“Yep, she can have a couple days off,” Colby announced, with a nod, as he picked up a second sandwich. “Damn, these are good.”
“How about a week off for Kate?” Simon asked and then laughed. He smiled down at Kate and noted, “At least I know how to make your team happy.”
She sighed. “Yeah, not exactly hard to do. I mean, just bring food.” She grinned at everybody, happy that this home, this family was, indeed, hers and that, for the moment, all was well.